SOEs: Buy High. Sell Higher?

Another 19 real estate companies also showed interest in the land bought by Sino Ocean, among them Gemdale Group, a private real estate company. It didn’t bother to bid, though, as prices were too high and a huge challenge for a private company. In the current environment, SOEs are able to take significantly greater risks than private enterprises.

My closest friend in Shanghai is also a land developer (房地产开发商) and I’ve heard the exact same story from him. Every time they try to bid on a project, some SOE backed business comes in at a higher price. No matter how much you are willing to offer, the SOE backed group raise the bid until they get the property.

Do SOE’s have a secret for generating better ROI than experienced, well managed, privately held developers? If they do, they should start a training academy teaching their “post-market economics efficiency”. Most likely this will be a lesson in buying high and selling low.

Zhang Shuguang, chairman of Unirule Institute of Economics, says, “Real estate policy next year is a choice among contradictions and big changes may not take place. Tightening policies will cause the real estate bubble to burst, resulting in economic problems, while excessive stimulus will bring a bigger bubble and greater risks.”

You’ve got a bubble on your hands. Choices I’m aware of are a) soft landing or b) hard landing. Sounds like the Chinese plan is to “manage the bubble”. Good luck with that.

The dilemma is more obvious for local governments. Zhang Shuguang says that half of local government income is real estate-related, and local real estate policies will not see big changes. Preferential policies may be fine-tuned instead of cancelled.

In case you want to know “why” the bureaucrats what to “manage the bubble” instead of fixing the economy? Because the bubble is putting money in their budgets. The bigger the budget, the bigger the kickback.

Can we bring Zhu Rongji back the way Deng Xiaoping was brought back? He’s ceased to exist as a public figure since 2003 – just about the time the economy started going way off track.

Zhu tackled the problems of an excessive money supply, rising prices, and a chaotic financial market stemming, in large measure, from runaway investments in fixed assets. After four years of successful macro-economic controls with curbing inflation as the primary task, an overheated Chinese economy cooled down to a “soft landing”.

Unfortunately, he’s not likely to be restored because:

Zhu has a reputation for being a strong, strict administrator, intolerant of flunkeyism, nepotism, and a dilatory style of work. For his hard work ethic and general truthful and transparent attitude, he is generally considered one of the most popular Communist officials in mainland China.

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